


You Can Feel My Lips Undress Your Eyes

by CyanideBreathmint



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-27
Updated: 2010-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-13 10:24:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyanideBreathmint/pseuds/CyanideBreathmint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After their encounter over Craigslist Arthur reverts to not giving Eames the time of day, which makes Eames frustrated, to say the least. Provoking Arthur tends to be a chancy proposition, however, especially when you’re not entirely sure what you’re going to get. Slash, het, rock and roll.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can Feel My Lips Undress Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to my very filthy [Craigslist fic](http://chn-breathmint.livejournal.com/486226.html#cutid1), but is otherwise not a part of my main fic timeline. I uh, similarly have no excuse for this beyond “it’s all [photoclerk](http://photoclerk.livejournal.com/)'s fault,” so go blame her instead. Title appropriated from Franz Ferdinand’s _Darts of Pleasure_. Betaed by [photoclerk](http://photoclerk.livejournal.com/).
> 
> Additional warnings: Pre-movie, gun porn, genderbending, dream sex, rough sex, biting, does not actually contain any rock-and-roll.

Eames did not understand Arthur sometimes, and this job in Glasgow was no different. Oh, granted, he _was_ the best point man in the business, skilled in intelligence-gathering and operational security, a merciless killer when he had to be and a consummate professional in all ways, but Eames sometimes felt that he took his professionalism a bit far. In the weeks that passed since the failed one-night stand (and the mind-blowing sex the morning after), Arthur reverted entirely to his usual demeanor of distance and disdain and focused his attentions wholly on his work.

This was frustrating, to say the least, and Eames had asked him about it one afternoon while they sat at a greasy-spoon across the street from their mark’s mistress’s flat, waiting for him to be done with his usual afternoon assignation.

“You could at least acknowledge what happened between us,” Eames had said as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair, the memory of Arthur’s apparent lack of a gag reflex fresh in his mind and in his half-hard cock.

“I hope you’re not going to say that you’re in love with me,” Arthur had said from behind a copy of the _Economist,_ his gaze focused on the window of the second-floor flat across the street.

“I’m not in love with you,” Eames said a little petulantly. “I’m in _lust._ ”

“Unfortunately for your lust I do not take personal time out on the job,” Arthur said, folding his paper as their mark came out onto the street. He pushed his chair back and stood, left a few crisp banknotes to pay for the cooling cup of tea he had left on the greasy table. “I would also like to remind you that my personal life is not anything Cobb needs to know about,” he continued as he coolly put his sunglasses on and stepped out into the watery afternoon sunlight.

* * *

That was as far as the conversation went, and the next morning Eames found a box of tissues and a bottle of hand lotion on the table he had appropriated for his own use in the shuttered restaurant space they worked out of. There was no note, no clue as to where they had come from, but Eames did not need to ask. He stood up and walked into the kitchen where Arthur liked to work.

“Very funny, Arthur.” he said wryly, waving the bottle of Jergen’s in his direction.

“Hopefully that’ll help you keep it in your pants until we’re done with the job,” Arthur said, his attention focused mostly on the PASIV device laid out on the stainless steel countertop beside the empty space where the walk-in freezer used to be.

 _Actually, I was thinking of several ways to use it on you,_ Eames had wanted to say, but Cobb chose that very moment to walk in on them. If thoughts could kill Cobb would have been dead several times over, but as they didn’t all Eames managed was to give himself a tension headache.

“How’s the PASIV?” he asked Arthur, frowning at the tools and parts spread across the counter.

“The fuse needs replacing, but that’s all that’s wrong with it. It’ll be ready after I change out the lines and run a few test diagnostics.” Loops of replacement wire and IV line rested beside him and his movements were smooth and precise.

Cobb looked up from the PASIV at Eames, and the intensity of his stare made Eames realize that he was still holding the bottle of hand lotion. “Dry skin,” he said quickly, squeezing a dollop onto the palm of his hand as he did. “Can’t pick pockets without baby-soft hands, you know.”

“Right,” Cobb said after a short, awkward silence. He left a folded envelope on the countertop beside Arthur and walked back out of the kitchen.

“I am going to kill you once this job is over,” Eames hissed at Arthur once the heavy door had swung shut behind Cobb. _Or fuck you until you can’t stand afterwards,_ he thought but did not say.

“You’re welcome to try,” Arthur said dryly as he put the retainer plate back onto the top half of the PASIV and fastened the screws with a Phillips-head screwdriver, and from the look on his face Eames knew that he was thinking exactly the same thing. He thought then of Arthur’s mouth hot against his sternum and those slender fingers around his wrists and it took him all his self-control to not bend Arthur over the counter here and now and fuck the smugness off his face. Instead he took a long, deep breath that filled his head with light, stepped out of the kitchen and sat down on his table until he could concentrate on work again.

* * *

The job was fairly straightforward as much as stealing from someone’s mind could ever be. Their mark was one Richard Ellis Ferguson, an overly clever young man whose intelligence and lack of scruples made him a rising star in the fiduciary world. Such genius was often resented however, and the sheer ease with which he made his already wealthy employers even more so stirred up resentment and rumor in the underbelly of the banking world. More suspicious, however, was his seeming precognition – especially where shares of specific companies were concerned. He made over four million Euros on choice stock buys in the last week alone.

Their employer wanted them to figure out whether Ferguson did, in fact, have insider knowledge that he was exploiting, and find out who he was getting it from. Cobb turned Arthur loose on him and he promptly ferreted out the tiniest details of Ferguson’s private life swiftly and efficiently. The one person who stood out the most was his current mistress, one Rachael Alexandra McInnis, who also happened to be seeing a high-powered contract lawyer, a man who would in fact have access to the information their mark could have used.

This was where Eames came in. He worked on mimicking her mannerisms and appearance while Arthur investigated her background, and one afternoon they picked the lock to her flat and took reference shots of the interior while she was out at a yoga class, and then passed the pictures to Stanley, the architect Cobb had hired for the job. The only thing that remained to be done then, was to test the forgery while Stanley worked on replicating the layout of McInnis’ flat.

“I don’t know if Stanley can do it in time,” Arthur had said as he dreamed up a hotel room in which Eames could work his forgery, sterile air, neutral wallpaper and a large bed tellingly similar to the one they had fucked in.  
Eames heard Arthur’s voice but did not register the words. He stared instead at the bathroom mirror and thought of Rachael McInnis’ tawny hair shading to strawberry at the roots, and of blue-green eyes like broken windshield glass. His reflection flickered once, twice, and then he felt her presence rise over him and turned to face Arthur without even looking in the mirror.

“What do you think?” Eames asked in her soft, precise voice. She wore an oversized man’s shirt – one of Arthur’s – and little else, and her bare feet padded softly against the tile floor of the bathroom as she stood in the doorway.

Arthur’s gaze lingered on the V of skin framed by the open collar of her shirt and she felt a faint thrill at the provocation she read in his dark eyes, in the tautness of his body language. “I think she prefers to wear her hair up most of the time,” he said after a long moment of silence.

Eames simply smiled Rachael’s tight, frosty smile and dreamed a silver barrette out of her shirt pocket. She reached up, twisted her long, wavy hair into a neat queue and then pinned it up and out of the way. “Better?” she asked, the Scots more evident in her public-school accent as she grew more annoyed.

“You even sound right now,” Arthur said, cracking the faintest hint of a smile. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” she said as she took hold of the end of his necktie, pulled his face towards hers.

Arthur stood frozen, shuddered as she ran her knee up the inside of his thigh, his breath quickening minutely at the touch. “Not while we’re on the job, Miss Eames. Not even if you’re wearing someone else’s face,” he whispered. Eames heard a soft rustle of cloth, turned her gaze from his face to see him drawing his Glock from behind his right hip.  
“Fine, if you want to play it this way.” she said, feeling more than a touch privately defeated. She heard more than felt a sharp crack and was Eames in his own skin again as he opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling of the dining room.

Arthur stirred a moment later and sat up. “That was a good forgery,” he said and unhooked himself from the PASIV as though nothing had happened. He stood up, stretched, and then vanished into the kitchen to check on Stanley, who had promised to finish the maze layout by sundown.

 _A good forgery,_ Eames thought, annoyed at Arthur’s offhandedness. Might as well describe a Caillebotte as a “good painting”.

* * *

The extraction itself went pear-shaped in a rather amusing way. Eames decided “amusing” was the right word as nobody got shot in the dream or in the waking world, and they got the information they wanted (mostly) without the mark even catching on to them. No, the amusement came from the revelation that Eames had been forging the wrong person all along.

* * *

“So McInnis is just covering for Ferguson and Carter, who happen to be seeing each other instead of her.” Cobb said after they regrouped in the restaurant. They had left Ferguson as he was, sleeping off the effects of a genuine root canal.

“I should have seen it,” Arthur said ruefully as he flipped through the dossiers, trying to spot the patterns in the information. “Occam’s Razor and all.”

“What, that their mutual mistress is actually their beard, and that they’ve actually both been shagging since that company formal in ’06?” Eames asked. “That’s not exactly the simplest interpretation of things. I have to give them credit though, that’s actually rather clever, paying her off as social camouflage.”

“The next time I start wondering about something like this, we’ll do a preliminary extraction on the mistress first just to make sure,” Arthur said, shaking his head as he flipped the folder shut.

Cobb’s cell phone chirped softly in his jacket pocket and he pulled it out, read the message. “It’s Davies,” he said in reply to Arthur’s curious glance. “She wants to know whether we have it.” He headed for the employee exit and stepped out of the back-of-house, the door swinging ponderously shut behind him.

Eames caught Arthur’s gaze once Cobb was safely out of earshot and the both of them stared at each other for a brief, crackling moment before Arthur spoke first. “Just so you know,” he said, “the job is not over yet. Not until I get confirmation that Davies is happy with the intel.”

“You are _such_ a cocktease.” Eames huffed, smiling at Arthur’s smugness despite the arousal and frustration creeping up the base of his spine. He hated to admit it, but Arthur’s condescension was downright sexy at times.

“Bite me, Mr. Eames,” Arthur said with a flash of white teeth, a quick humorless grin that made Eames’ breath quicken at the memories it stirred up. Quickly he stepped around the corner of the table into Arthur’s space, and felt a faint thrill of anticipation when Arthur did not back away from him. Instead he took hold of the lapels on Eames’ jacket and used them to tug him closer. They stood like this for an aching minute, close enough that Eames could feel the heat radiating off Arthur’s skin through his clothing, and he reached up to brush his thumb lightly against the lobe of Arthur’s ear before he nipped gently at the skin of his neck just above the stiff collar of his shirt.

“Bitten,” Eames whispered heavily in Arthur’s ear as he slid a hand beneath the tail of Arthur’s coat, pressing the palm of his hand against the small of his back.

“Who’s the cocktease now, Mr. Eames?” Arthur murmured against the side of Eames’ neck, lips brushing lightly against his skin. It seemed as though he was going to give in, that they were going to fuck each other senseless in this sterile kitchen when Arthur’s phone beeped shrilly. _Bloody hell,_ Eames thought as Arthur stiffened and pulled away from him to answer the call.

“Cobb?” Arthur said, turning away, all business now as the moment vanished like a soap bubble.

Eames took a long, deep breath and distracted himself by imagining the horrible things he wanted to do to Cobb in dreamshare as payback for the interruption. His mind was somewhere between defenestration and setting him on fire when Arthur hung up, put the phone back in his jacket pocket. “It appears that we still have work to do,” Arthur said, his mouth twisting in a half-smile.

“And things were going so well, too,” Eames said, wresting his train of thought away from the lighter, the can of petrol and the merry smell of burning flesh.

“Davies wants us to perform an extraction on Carter, figure out what exactly he told Ferguson.”

“There’s a catch,” Eames said, “I can see it in your face.”

“Yeah, of course there is,” Arthur said as he punched in a phone number from memory, hit Call. “Davies has it on good authority that Carter has probably been militarized.”

“Wonderful,” Eames said, and meant it. This probably meant being shot at and probably being killed several times if they tried to be overt about things. “How long do we have?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur said. “Cobb’ll tell us when he gets back here.” He sat down at his table in the pastry nook and pulled out his laptop, started on a fresh round of research while waiting for the person on the other end to pick up. Eames sighed and left Arthur to his investigation. There was no getting past his sense of professionalism once he was on the job.

* * *

It took Arthur a solid week of constant research and prodigious amounts of coffee to get the data they needed for the extraction. His impeccable dress sense deteriorated rather rapidly as he slept at his desk and ate whatever he could absentmindedly hold in one hand, never taking his eyes off his laptop and typing all the while. Eames found it strange, seeing Arthur with his necktie crooked and his shirt rumpled, staring at his laptop monitor with all the facial animation of a newly dead catfish as he looked through Carter’s bank records and blurry photocopies of his daily planner.

Neither he nor Cobb saw any point in asking Arthur to slow down, however. In this matter he was as inexorable and inevitable as a rock slide, and attempts at getting him to eat or sleep just made him more irritable, which meant that he would perversely ignore all attempts at communication while trawling private databases for more information on their mark.

Eames sometimes wondered if Arthur had obsessive-compulsive disorder or if he was just the kind of person who couldn’t sleep properly with work left undone. He mulled the matter over one slow afternoon, as he tailed Carter discreetly, and decided that it was probably more the latter than the former, a streak of perfectionism coupled with no small amount of stubbornness and iron discipline. His phone buzzed and he fished it out of his shirt pocket, squinted at the text message. _Hit pay dirt. A._

 _Mysterious as ever,_ he thought as he left Carter to his life and slipped back towards their headquarters to see what Arthur had found.

* * *

“Carter used to have a fairly regular rentboy habit, at least, the payments to the escort agency say so,” Arthur said as he sipped his coffee. Three or four empty paper cups sat nested on his desk and several more were crumpled up in the wastepaper basket at his feet. He was the only person Eames knew who was fastidious enough to bother with a wastepaper basket in a temporary HQ like theirs.

“When did he stop?” Cobb asked. He leaned over Arthur’s desk, read the photocopied bank statements upside down until Arthur picked up the sheaf of paper and handed it over.

“The payments stopped about eighteen months ago,” Arthur said. “Third page, line marked in the green highlighter.”

“So, after he started seeing Ferguson. How charmingly improper.” Eames appropriated Arthur’s lukewarm cup of coffee, took a sip and then winced at the taste. He wondered about the kind of a toll the constant research had taken on Arthur to make him put up with swill like this.

“Probably before they got serious. I did a little more digging around, made a few phone calls. His favorite’s still working for the agency on a part-time basis,” Arthur said as he slid a crisp manila folder across his desk to Eames, his hand trembling slightly from caffeine and sleep deprivation.

“Really,” Eames said, full of interest. He put the wretched cup of hours old coffee back down on Arthur’s desk and leafed through the contents of the folder, a motley collection of glamor photographs and a short biography printed from the agency website. His working name was Lucas and his biography described him as half-Vietnamese, interested in Fellini movies and modernist art. _A starving artist,_ Eames thought. He had the look about him, all cheekbones and narrow chin and masses of bleached brown hair pushed carelessly away from his face. “If he’s still working for the agency it means I could arrange to meet him, learn to forge him,” he mused, saying it aloud if only to see if that would get a reaction out of Arthur.

Arthur stopped mid-swallow and then put his coffee cup down on his desk, and Eames smiled inwardly as he saw Arthur’s knuckles whiten around his green highlighter. “I’m not sure Ms. Davies would actually appreciate you claiming an escort fee on our expenses list.”

“We can put it down as miscellaneous if you’re up for it. She doesn’t need to know all the details,” Cobb said, putting the bank statements back on the desk, oblivious or wickedly indifferent to the growing tension in Arthur’s posture.

“I'll make the call,” he replied tersely. Eames smirked, as he pushed his chair back and stood up to leave.

“By the way, Eames,” Cobb said, deadpan, the faintest hint of amusement visible in his gaze, “practice safe sex, will you? I don’t want to have to find a new forger if you catch anything too interesting.”

“Will do!” he said cheerfully, a flicker of satisfaction licking at his heart now that the shoe was on the other foot. It was satisfying to know that Arthur was jealous, that he _could_ make Arthur jealous, and the feeling kept him warm through the cold Glasgow afternoon.

* * *

Cobb somehow managed to find another architect on short notice, a woman named Claire who was, thankfully, more competent than Stanley. After an initial vetting they had hired her and she had started working on the maze layout using reference photographs of the hotel Carter used every time he hired Lucas.

Arthur had, with his usual thoroughness, also provided swatches of carpet and cloth for the linens and curtains. He had not said anything about Eames’ careful study of Lucas or the circumstances in which it had happened above and beyond his usual bland approval of the forgery, but Eames knew his mannerisms enough to know that he was having trouble concentrating on the job. It was a certain look in his eye, a sort of distance in his gaze when he flipped through the pages of his Moleskine notebook, his fingers just uncoordinated enough to suggest his mind was somewhere else.

It wasn’t entirely clear whether Arthur was jealous or envious of him but he didn’t spend too much time worrying about that. He knew when it came down to the actual extraction Arthur would be professional enough to put most of it out of his mind; but it was utterly satisfying to know that Arthur too was at least as much in lust as he was.

* * *

Carter had no planned medical appointments, not in the window of time they had open for anything timely enough to please Davies, so that usual avenue was out. They had waited instead for him to fly to Edinburgh on business, intercepted his room service dinner and spiked his tea with a harmless sedative. Eames waited the prescribed twenty minutes after dinner in the room next door, and then unlocked the door to Carter’s room with a copy of the concierge’s passkey. Carter was snoring gently, asleep in the hotel room armchair, his dinner tray pushed carelessly aside on the desk.

“Babies do not sleep better,” Eames whispered, nodding at their mark as Arthur came into the room with the PASIV in his grip, followed shortly by Cobb.

“This isn’t a briefcase full of soap,” Arthur said drily, raising a brow at the reference.

“No,” Cobb said, allowing a brief smile to flicker across his face as he locked the door behind them. “This is better.”

Arthur pushed Carter’s watchband up and swabbed his wrist; prepped him for the IV line while Eames and Cobb hooked themselves up. He then sat down on the carpeted floor beside them and ran his own IV line. The PASIV had already been configured to recognize him as the host for their constructed dream, and he nodded once to the both of them before he depressed the trigger. Sleep reached up and tugged at Eames’ face, pulled him down with gray fingers, and then –

* * *

“This is the last time, isn’t it?” Eames-as-Lucas said, his mouth curving into a slight pout as he shrugged off his shirt, glanced at his reflection in the mirror on the dresser.  
Carter sat on the edge of the bed behind him, loosening the silk tie around his neck. “You said this wasn’t going to get emotional,” he said, his eyes faintly wistful under the hardness.

“I just think he’s a lucky man, whoever he is,” Eames murmured, hands pausing over his belt buckle, playing for time. Cobb would need at least twenty minutes to break into the safe now that Carter was thinking of Ferguson, and twenty minutes was, frankly, on the risky side of things. Half an hour was better, and that was assuming that Carter’s militarized subconscious didn’t realize that this wasn’t his dream. They did, at least, have Arthur dreaming this level and backing them up with sniper fire. If everything went according to plan the projections would seek him out first, where he could pick them off at range as they tried to approach him.

“Flattery is not going to get you paid any more, Luke.” Carter said, smiling gently despite the situation.

“Maybe not,” Eames breathed, “but it’s all part and parcel of the job.” He unbuckled his belt, slid his jeans over his skinny hips, smiling inwardly at the effect he had on the mark. He padded softly across the carpet to Carter, would have climbed in his lap, but the moment was interrupted by a sharp crack from outside, and then another.

“What was that?” Carter asked, turning his head sharply towards the window.

“Nothing you have to worry about, darling,” Eames purred as he dreamed up a syringe and jabbed him in the bicep. Carter’s eyes went soft and blurry as the drugs took effect, and then he collapsed into Eames’ arms, limp and unresisting. He laid Carter down on the bed in the hotel room and dropped back into his own form, pulled a headset and a SIG P220 from the messenger bag he had thoughtfully planted in the room when Arthur had memorized the level. “What the bloody hell is going on?” he asked after testing the channels on the headset.

“The projections are on to me,” Arthur said, his voice scratchy with static. “Is Carter out of the picture?”

“Knocked him out with a syringe full of veterinary tranquilizer. Not exactly suitable for human use, but I doubt we have to worry about that here,” Eames said. He shut the hotel room door behind him and slipped through the hallway, took a right and ran down the stairs. An elevator full of projections was nowhere to be in a situation like this.

“Status on Cobb?”

“I’m okay,” Cobb said after a tense silence on the headset. “Arthur’s creating enough of a distraction that they’re all going for him right now.” He heard more gunshots in the distance followed by two more sharp cracks and more silence, and smiled grimly to himself. Arthur was an excellent shot with a rifle, but if they came faster than he could reload he could find himself swarmed with projections, and if anything happened to him the dream would start collapsing around them.

* * *

Eames slipped out of one of the side exits and prowled down the alleyway towards Arthur’s position across the street, keeping to cover as he did. It was a small mercy that the projections were all concerned with finding and killing Arthur right now, which gave him a chance to create a little mayhem of his own. He hunkered down beside the concrete wall and glanced up at the building across the street where Arthur was holed up. _A good vantage point,_ he thought, but the blind spots got bigger the closer the projections got to the building itself, and there were enough of them that he would have started worrying about holding them back were he in Arthur’s position right now. He could not see the barrel of Arthur’s rifle in the façade of the building before him, but he knew exactly where Arthur was; they had covered this in the dry run in the event of things going less-than-right, which they usually did.

Eames rounded the corner smoothly, covering the area in front of him with the muzzle of his SIG as he turned. Two projections with shotguns went down easily to a double-tap each, and then he was diving into cover by a parked SUV as the spent brass tinkled on the sidewalk.

“Need a little help there?” Arthur asked him over the headset, his tone almost conversational. Another rifle shot punctuated his question, and a projection dropped to the ground not five feet from Eames’ current position.

“I was going to ask you the very same question, darling,” Eames said as he shot a projection in Arthur’s blind spot. “It appears you’re going to need a spotter there.”

“A handgun’s not exactly the best thing to bring to a gunfight like this one,” Arthur said. “Cobb, you still all right?”

“I’m cracking the safe right now,” came the reply. “The projections seem to have taken the bait for now.”

“I’ll keep you covered while you cross the street, Eames. There’s an M4 waiting for you if you make it up here alive,” Arthur said.

“Better than the bloody SA-80,” Eames said, grinning humorlessly as he rose from his crouch, shot two more projections and then broke into a dead sprint, ducking low as automatic weapons fire chattered in the air. Dream-bullets pocked the wall beside and in front of him, and then the weapons fire fell silent as Arthur killed the projection with the G3 with a single, well-placed shot. Eames shot two more projections; the both of them close enough to the building entrance that they were within Arthur’s blind spot, and then he was in through the doors, which he shut and barred with a crowbar that Arthur had left for that very purpose.

* * *

Arthur was up on the fifth floor, and Eames had taken the steps two at a time, rushing to reach him before the projections found another way into the building.

“Too many cigarettes, Eames,” Arthur said dryly as Eames came into the room after several minutes of desperate sprinting. He did not even look up, only fired his rifle and worked the bolt of his M24 smoothly as he swiveled around to line another shot up, cold and clinical.

“Bugger off. You know that’s not a concern in here,” Eames said as he picked up the M4A1 Arthur had left leaning against the wall by his position. A wicked grin flashed across his face as he joined Arthur at the window, trailed his fingertips along the taut line of his back.

Arthur glanced up from the scope of his rifle and then looked back through it, the slight twitch of a muscle in his jaw the only sign of his rumpled composure. “This probably isn’t the best time to be distracting me,” he said after a few moments of silence.

Eames looked through the reflex sights on the M4 and lined up a quick burst on one of the closer projections while Arthur dealt with the ones further away. “I could tell you what I did with the escort, if you’d like.”

“No thanks,” Arthur said blandly as he dropped another projection. “Whatever you two did can’t be as entertaining as what I did with you.”

Eames almost choked at Arthur’s audacity then. He recovered, shot another projection, and then prepared a counterattack. “Are you really that sure you’re a better shag than a double-jointed art model?”

“I doubt he made you beg like I did.” _Like I can now,_ Arthur did not say, but the words hung implicit in the burnt-powder smell of the air between them.

“You could make me beg if you wanted now,” Eames whispered, his voice now McInnis’ soft dulcet tones, the scent of her hair and perfume drifting through the smoke and spent gunpowder.

Arthur did not look at her, just swallowed hard as he glanced around at the street littered with the bodies of projections. “Status check, Cobb?” he asked, his voice rasping out of a dry mouth.

“Give me ten minutes,” Cobb said over the headset. “Carter gave Ferguson a lot of insider information.”

“Ten minutes, got it,” Arthur said before he killed the microphone on his headset, put his M24 down.

“What are you doing?” Eames asked him, eyes widening in feigned shock as Arthur stepped away from his vantage point in the window, pushed her up against the sill with the M4A1 still in her hands.

“Making you beg,” Arthur whispered into the back of her head, burying his face in the mass of red-blond hair she wore pinned up in a loose French twist. He tugged her headset off and threw it into a corner of the room, rucked her skirt up with his fingers. “You’ll want to keep an eye out for projections while I’m busy,” he murmured ruthlessly, “wouldn’t want this to end prematurely now would you?”

Eames shivered at the touch of Arthur’s hands against the tops of her stockings, tracing along the lace and the suspenders she had dreamed up just for this occasion. She was wet, helplessly so, and she could feel the heat of his body through the clothes they wore, his slender fingers brushing lightly along the soft skin of her belly above the aching emptiness of her cunt.

“Please, Arthur,” she whispered, indulging him as his left hand splayed across the shallow curve of her breast, palming her nipple through her blouse and the filmy cup of her bra. The gunfight had left her awareness heightened, and the adrenaline in her system made her sensitive to the slightest whisper of his skin against hers.

“Eyes on target,” Arthur said, his breath hot against the back of her neck before he nipped her gently. Eames moaned at the scratch of his sharp teeth against her skin and he worked the pearl buttons of her blouse left-handed, popping a few off in his eagerness. Her hearing was unnaturally sharp, underscored with the faint ringing that came whenever she was this turned-on, and she listened to the buttons clattering to the floor beside the spent brass, the scrape of Arthur’s boot soles as he shifted closer to her and pressed his cock against the upper curve of her ass.

“Do you want me to fuck you, Miss Eames?” Arthur whispered urgently into her ear then, his voice covering the soft metallic rasp of his zipper.

“God, yes,” she whimpered softly, barely recognizing the voice that came out of her throat.

“Hm. I don’t think I heard you there,” he said as he slid the head of his cock along the cleft of her pussy, against the wetness of her inner thighs.

 _“Please,_ Arthur,” she managed to say aloud as he pulled her into his arms and let her rest wobbly-kneed against him. He plucked the carbine from her hands, left it leaning against the wall beside his rifle, and then bent her over the windowsill again.

“See how easy it is if you ask politely?” Arthur grunted softly as he eased himself into her; stretched her open with a long, slow thrust. She moaned softly and then louder as he ground himself against her, the teeth of his zipper and the denim of his jeans rough against the delicate skin of her ass.

“You feel so good like this,” Eames gasped, and rocked back against Arthur as the head of his cock caught against the slight roughness of her G-spot.

“The things I want to do to you,” Arthur whispered hoarsely in between sharp breaths. “If we had more time I’d have tied you down, warmed your ass with the palm of my hand.”

“You could do it now,” she said a little hopefully, turning her face in an attempt to look over her shoulder, “leave me raw.”

“Not this time Miss Eames, but I am going to fuck you so thoroughly you still feel me inside you when you wake up,” he growled against her ear. She shut her eyes and shuddered helplessly as he reached down and took hold of her hips, gripped her hard enough to bruise as he slid up into the slick heat of her cunt. Eames reached down between her own legs and touched herself then, rubbing desperately at her own clit.

“God, you want it so badly, you tease,” Arthur whispered, and then he let go of her hips and brushed her hand aside, replaced her fingers with his. His touch was like fire, his callused fingertips moving in slow circles over the sensitive underside of her clit. She rocked back against his thrusts, grabbed hold of his wrist and guided the movement of his hand as his pulse beat against her fingers and her back, and then she was shouting, surprised as her orgasm overtook her, mauled her and spat her out spent and shivering. She clung helplessly onto the windowsill as her vision went white and her knees threatened to fold.

Arthur took hold of her hips again, held her up as she sagged limp against him. “That can’t be all you’ve got,” he said, punctuating each word with a deep thrust. She could hear the wicked smile in his voice as her vision cleared, and then she was writhing helplessly against him as he continued to fuck her, thrusting hard enough to knock the breath out of her.

“Please, Arthur, I can’t – “ Eames gasped raggedly as he reached down to stroke her again, flinching weakly at his touch. She had always been incredibly sensitive after climax and further stimulation usually hurt after this point.

“Yes you can,” Arthur growled over his own heavy breathing, “just like this.” He pressed his knuckles against her clitoris but did not rub, simply let her grind back against him at her own pace as the sensitivity waned.

“I think I’m –” Eames whispered after a few more thrusts, and bucked hard against his hips as she came again, a stifled scream hissing out between her teeth as she clenched down around him. Arthur started rubbing hard at her clit with his fingers as she caught her breath again, and her vision dwindled to bloodwarm dark as she came desperately around him again and again in what felt like one long orgasm. His thrusts grew harder, more urgent with his own need and then he was trembling against her, shuddering as he spent himself deep in her. She moaned as he thrust up into her one last time, and he bit down on the nape of her neck, the pain sharp and clean, flashing white against the fuzzy dark behind her eyelids.

“That was perfect,” she moaned, sagging weakly as he slid out of her and let her go, blood hissing in her ears.

“Well. Time’s up,” he said shakily, and she opened her eyes as she felt cold steel against her temple, found his Glock against her head. “Goodnight, Eames,” he said, and then there was a roar and nothing and –

* * *

Eames sat up in Carter’s hotel room, feeling overheated, his mouth dry and fuzzy, and he swallowed hard as he pulled the IV cannula from his own wrist. “Do you have it?” he asked Cobb, who had already disconnected himself and was getting up to leave. Arthur crouched by Carter, checked his vitals and then reeled the IV lines back into the PASIV. His expression was bland, infuriatingly professional as he shut the briefcase back up.

“Everything Davies wanted is right here,” Cobb said, tapping at his temple with a finger before he left the room.

Arthur picked the PASIV up, nodded politely to Eames. “It was nice working with you again,’ he said blandly, a wicked glint in his eye. “I’ll wire you your share once the payment goes through.

“That’d be nice,” Eames said, meeting Arthur’s gaze with his own as he rubbed at the pinprick on his own wrist. He could still feel the phantom sting of Arthur’s teeth against his neck and wondered idly if the bruises on his hips were blossoming under his clothes in this very moment.

“Later, Mr. Eames,” Arthur said, his expression unreadable, infuriating, and then he was gone.


End file.
